Saturday, June 21, 2014

Yes, I know - I've been quiet on the blogging front for the last few months. I do have a few finishes to show but they will eventually get their own post. I have been spending far too much time on facebook lately and have started up my own page to try and sell some of my homemade stuff. I've also joined a few crafty buy/sell groups and am buying way more than I'm selling which was not the intent when I joined :-/. I've also been dabbling in making greeting cards which is fun and quicker than cross stitch.

However....on to the karate news. On the Queen's birthday weekend DS & I carpooled with another lady and her 2 kids and headed to Mount Gambier in South Australia for the S.A Training Camp & Open Tournament. We were to share a 2 bedroom cabin and let's just say I've seen bigger bathrooms! We got inside, looked at each other and thought "where's the rest of it?" LOL. The bathroom/toilet was through the bedroom that I shared with the 3 kids. Thankfully we managed alright and didn't want to kill each other after 5 minutes.

Saturday was the training camp for the kids so we dropped them off, stayed for a while, then headed out for lunch. When we signed up for the camp it was to be 1 1/2 hours in the morning, and the same in the afternoon. However, by the time things were finalised it became 9.45am-4.30pm with a lunch break. The kids thought we were trying to kill them! Afterwards we headed out for dinner to a place that had been recommended to us. We ordered simple pasta/pizza/calzone meals and waited. And waited some more. Finally we asked about our food after 45 minutes - it was coming. My son's pasta was the first to arrive and because it was late and everyone was hungry he started eating. He'd finished by the time the calzones and pizza arrived and we were half finished by the time the final pasta arrived. My calzone was tasty, although burnt on about 1/4 of the top. By this stage the kids were exhausted so we headed home.

Sunday was the tournament and both myself and the other lady volunteered to help as the call went out for parents who knew what they were doing. Haha! There were only 2 mats, plus a 3rd one for a few hours in the morning. She requested mat 1 and I requested mat 2 as that's where our kids were competing. Let's just say we had our hands full from start to finish! I hate being responsible for the scoreboard, but got to do it for all the events on my mat, including some of the more full on events such as the mens and male veterans kumite. You can not tune out for a second as you'll lose the plot - or is that just me?

Ok, so to DS's results. In his kata division he had the 3 time national champ, and in kumite the 4 time national champ to contend with. Awesome! However he had good draws and both boys were in the other half of the draw. There were 8 in kata and DS won his first round 3-0, but lost the next round 2-1 in a decision not everyone agreed with, including a coach and referee. Had he won he would have made the final against the national champ. However, he was able to win one more round 3-0 to gain third place. :-). In kumite there were about 14 kids. DS did really well, winning his first round 2-0, and his second 3-0. Next up was a boy I never wanted him to fight. He's a fellow Victorian and very strong and powerful and far better than DS. It wasn't pretty to watch, with this boy knocking DS off his feet and slamming him down onto the mat several times. DS put up a good fight, but pulled out with a few seconds on the clock after consulting with the medics. He lost this fight 4-0, which was a good score considering. It was pointed out to us that it took half the match for the other boy to score. Had he won this match he would have faced the national champ in the final. However he was able to fight one more round to try for 3rd place. He was still feeling the effects of the last fight and not in great shape but decided to fight anyway. He did well, although you could tell he was hanging back a little. He lost this one 3-0. I was very proud of him for his efforts on the day and giving it his best shot.

Afterwards we had a quick dinner and headed back to our cabin as we were all exhausted after a loooong day. The next morning we had planned to do some sight-seeing and head home at a leisurely pace. However our plans soon changed when my friends daughter woke up and vomited. Then vomited again. DS woke up complaining of a sore tummy too. We soon learnt that at least 14 South Australians, 95% of kids from our club (and a few adults), and several other Victorians had come down with some sort of gastro bug. All had to travel at least 4 hours to get to either Melbourne or Adelaide. We put the kids in the car and headed off, thinking we may need all the time we could get. We did have to make a few stops along the way for the kids, for obvious reasons. We got ourselves some bags which we attached to the head rests just in case and my friends 6 year old DD used hers with perfect aim, while travelling at 100km! Thankfully it turned out to mostly be a 24 hour bug, and none of the rest of the family got sick. At least the bug hit everyone AFTER the camp and tournament or it would have been a disaster of a weekend!